


The Elephant of Birnam Wood

by Burnadette_dpdl



Category: Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Blood, M/M, Mentions of Death, Scrabble, model train sets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 08:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burnadette_dpdl/pseuds/Burnadette_dpdl
Summary: Daniel is planning an addition to his model train set, Marius offers him encouragement, buying him some accessories for the addition. They have lived together for some four years, and little interaction has been had under the weight of their pasts. The weight presses in...
Relationships: Armand/Daniel Molloy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	The Elephant of Birnam Wood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [superhiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhiki/gifts).



> This takes place after the events of _**Queen of the Damned,**_ and in response to the below prompt from [@superhiki](http://superhiki.tumblr.com/) for the [@vcsecretgifts](http://vcsecretgifts.tumblr.com/) exchange of 2020 on tumblr.  
> Sorry for the late delivery, I had only intended for this to be 3-4 pages, and it overflowed! I really enjoyed writing this, Daniel's voice is sassy and fun, under all the angst, he's so lovable. If you enjoy reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing it, then it'll be a win.
> 
> Credit is also due to my collaborator [@Rebness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rebness/pseuds/Rebness/) ([@wicked-felina](http://wicked-felina.tumblr.com/)), and for my cheer squad [@lestvt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lestvt/pseuds/lestvt/) ([@lestvt](https://lestvt.tumblr.com)), [@Cesare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/pseuds/Cesare/) ([@codenamecesare](http://codenamecesare.tumblr.com/)), and [@LSRichards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSRichards/pseuds/LSRichards/), ([@sanguinivora](https://sanguinivora.tumblr.com)) (this last person, certainly not least, who gave me the draft for the opening paragraph and concept!). 
> 
> Superhiki's prompt:  
>  _"I’m always a fan of Armand, Daniel Molloy, Pandora, or Marius._
> 
> _Personally, I love “”“mad”“” Daniel when he is crashing (held captive?) at Grandpa Vampire Marius’ ridiculous home in whatever frosty part of the planet he’s at in Blood & Gold. Daniels’ obsession with model trains, jokes about model trains, and all dopey train paraphernalia is 10000% hilarious to me and will be enjoyed. Especially if Marius is involved and overtly annoyed by Daniel’s fascination. Extra Bonus Points if there is a Christmas Village (WITH A TRAIN) involved. That is the best piece of canon material Anne Rice ever wrote about a single vampire and is tragically under exploited in this fandom. I’m laughing just thinking about it. As a grown man who has spent his entire life bouncing between niche obsessions (much to the chagrin of my entire family) this is up and away a home run, hilarious/endearing bit I cherish about VC."_

Daniel had decided to add a zoo. 

The southwest corner, he'd build a set of raised tiers, then the various enclosures, allowing plenty of room for the N gauge model trains, of course. He’d have to strip out the grass and dig into the area that had been the swell of a mountain to do it, but major surgery on the understructure had never bothered him. Daniel was a _“Measure once, cut twice,"_ kind of architect.

Marius had known about this decision without a word passed between them, and about a month ago, silently came into his room and handed him a lunch-sized paper bag of a few animals to start with, those that needed outdoor enclosures. Daniel immediately thought about snakes. He probably hadn’t gotten snakes. No sense in buying snakes for a herpetarium, there would be no windows to see in! Did hobby stores even make snakes? Or spiders? Spiders would be too small for even a model Z set, Daniel scoffed at the very idea. 

He was having that conversation entirely in his head, and Marius only waited patiently until he might be engaged, and when he wasn’t, except for a small, “Thank you,” he took his leave. Daniel barely noticed, dropped the bag on the side table, and went back to the people he was painting. He picked up the thread of the the internal conversation with himself, something he used to do when prepping for a writeup after an interview, that although there were no spiders for model train sets, _spiderwebs_ were very real, and he made a mental note to comb the model for those again, living spiders were the size of cats to the people on his set, and most unwelcome.

The bag sat for a few weeks, and then, the mouth of the bag had been opened, and then crumpled shut again. When Daniel finally peered inside, his finger pushing the little boxes around, he discovered a pair of your standard reticulated giraffes with a calf - _boring_ -, a friendly-looking bison, a maned lion with several lionesses, a few reindeer - Marius’ attempt at being charming for the holiday season? - and… a thick-skinned, gray, and rather grumpy looking elephant. That was the animal that had made Daniel shove them all back in the bag, nearly breaking the legs of the giraffes, even in their protective plastic packaging.

Aloud to the empty room, Daniel barked out: “Hey, man, what climate do you think I’m building here?” His lips curved into the edge of a manic smile. “You got some warm climate guys here, some cold ones, and you can see I’m trying to match nature out there,” he flung a hand out at the floor-length windows. Outside, a perfect line of pine trees were set back like an army at resting position beyond the snowed expanse of ground. “It’s _wicked fucking cold.”_

Marius’ silent voice spoke to Daniel in his head, in that chilling and delicious way that Armand used to do, smooth as a bourbon sweet tea:

_Do you want me to return some of them, Daniel?_

“No, I didn’t say to return anything,” he said aloud, and snatched up the bag. He gazed out the window. He felt himself cold, tall, like the trees out there. They were the right scale, and on the wide train set table, their perfect miniature versions flowed across the hills as if part of the same forest. Daniel considered his own size compared to the plastic people, milling about, dressed for the permanent winter in parkas, hats, and gloves, moments like these that captured him. He was enormous compared to the set and its flora and fauna, and so very, very, tiny compared to the real forest, and what it represented: the world at large. He finally had what he’d wanted for a decade, and still felt small, a caged bird in this ice castle. 

Marius appeared in the doorway, and looked out at the trees with him. 

**_“Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care_ **  
**_Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:_ **  
**_Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be until_ **  
**_Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill_ **  
**_Shall come against him.”_ **

Daniel shrugged with a writer’s disdain. He’d never been much of a Shakespeare fan.

The bag sat frowning like a puppet at Daniel from twenty feet away, on the side table that held a half-played game of Scrabble. He might be lured over to “play” it occasionally. It wasn’t a scored game, but more of a conversation-starter; Marius had read in a New Yorker article that people choose words in Scrabble that bring out what they feel, and suggested that maybe, that might be good for Daniel, who had been doing a lot of _not-talking_ in the past few years, except for the most superficial, since becoming a resident at the De Romanus Clinic for the Hopelessly Deranged. He’d had even less eye contact, and Scrabble offered words without that.

“Do you want to try a Scrabble word?” 

Daniel grunted affirmatively, slumped into the chair he preferred, and took 7 letters and trayed them. Marius did the same. 

“I have a word,” Marius said, too fast for Daniel’s liking. “But it’s your turn, if you have one?” 

Daniel’s letters read out as E T A S I T B, and after idly rearranging them and considering a few options (“BITES,” “BIT,” “SATE,” “STAB,” and “EATS”), placed the S before a standing A, and lined out the other letters to spell:

“SATIATE” 

Marius took a cautious look into his eyes. “Are you thirsting, Daniel?” And, when Daniel didn’t respond, “Did you want to go out?” 

“It’s just a word.”

“Are you sure?”

“You ask too. Many. _questions_ , old man.” 

“Would you prefer if-?” 

“That’s another goddamn _question!”_ he barked. 

Marius took a moment, staring at the board. 

_“Satiate._ You know, that is a good word, it opens up the board, if we were keeping score, you’d have 11 points. But, if you arranged them this way, instead,” and here Marius placed his finger on each tile to swivel it into a new place, “ ‘AETATIS’ is 18 points.” He pushed his long hair over his shoulder.

“We’re not keeping score, and that’s not a word.”

“We’re not, but it is.” 

Daniel said nothing, holding Marius’ gaze.

“It means, _‘of or at the age of.’”_ Marius sat back, bringing his hands together on the table.

“Well, that’s not what I’m feeling.” 

Marius sighed, concern creasing his brow. No one said this would be easy. The rules of their games were ever-changing, and for the moment, questions were out of bounds.

“We’re all faced with different challenges at different ages, Daniel.” After a beat, he moved the pieces back to SATIATE. 

They played out a few words each without speaking. CARAPACE. QUIXOTIC. SQUEEZE, which connected EYES and ZENITH.

When Marius set out, “QAID,” Daniel objected to it not being a real word.

Marius peered at him, with more than a touch of a smug expression, the pale thick gold of his hair in a liquid spill that dipped down the side of his jawline, and back up over his shoulder, like a banister. “It can be spelled ‘C-A-I-D,’ or ‘K-A-I-D,’ but it holds one precise meaning, _‘commander or leader.’_ ” He idly reached for the bag on the table. “It is an old phrase that was first used in the Latin language. I don’t know why you challenge me on these words, I’ve spent a millennia reading and writing.”

Daniel sat back and watched as Marius pulled out each animal, set them down in a lineup in their boxes, and with a long glassy fingernail began to slice open the plastic sticker holding the elephant’s container shut.

 _What are you doing?_ Daniel thought, but didn’t say.

“Clearly, I’m opening your new set pieces.” 

_I was going to open them myself…_

“Didn’t seem like you were planning to do it, so I thought I might help.” The elephant was out and Marius set him down with a _clack_ on the Scrabble board, one foot on a triple word score square, oddly lending him some measure of menace for a figurine at 160th scale to the real animal.

 _I didn’t_ **_ask_ ** _you to help._

“Daniel,” Marius supplicated. His hand hadn’t left the elephant. “Sometimes one needs help to talk about the elephant in the room.”

Daniel coughed out a laugh, suddenly desperate for a clinking glass of alcohol in his hand and a cigarette to shove in his mouth with the other. “Did you really-!” He huffed out, leaning sideways in his chair. “REALLY, you set all this up,” motioning his hand to the animal lineup, “for _that pun!”_ He laughed, wiped at the tiny red tears in his eyelashes, bloodied water smeared on his fingertips, and, seeing the stains, gruffly pressed them across the chest of his ragged black shirt. He choked out a little more laughter. “Wow, Marius. You really did spend _a millennia reading and writing,_ all to make a pun about ‘the elephant in the room.’ You should be so proud of yourself.”

Marius sat still, taking it all in, not even blinking, so still that he might have been a store mannequin. It still made Daniel’s skin crawl when he was that still, and Marius perceived this, shifting to cross his legs as an excuse to move. 

“Yes, I did. What is the elephant in the room, Daniel? What is it that troubles you?”

“You think I can just, y’know, _answer_ a question like that?” Daniel put his elbows on the table. “You think I have the answers just sitting here at the ready, like the index to a book?” His fingers rose swiftly to his lips again, the action of placing a phantom cigarette there, then fell back, empty. He definitely _could_ smoke, Marius hadn’t _outlawed_ it or anything, but whenever he’d tried, it just tasted like nothing. The cigarette itself felt like a tampon on his lips, like it had no place there. So he didn’t buy cigarettes anymore.

“In time, I do think you can. You can start with something small. Like the fact that you miss your cigarettes.”

“Yeah, I do miss my cancer sticks,” Daniel nodded. “I miss a lot of things, to be honest.”

Marius smiled, encouraging him: _Good, Daniel. Go on._

Daniel sighed. It had been almost four years here, building train sets, figuring out how to do the tunnels, the sculpture, the tracks. Books on it. He remembered little from his childhood except that it had been calming and good to have control over the much better tiny world in the basement of his family’s half of a dilapidated duplex. Now, he had access to the whole universe of art supplies, all the bells and whistles - literally! - he could desire. Stringing the tiny lights from underneath to make the buildings glow from within, the promise of comfort in their soft orange glow for little plastic families, workers, and businesspeople. He had a Christmas village, decorating several trees with tiny tinsel and lights, Santa’s workshop was a log cabin with candy cane porch posts. 

Four years. Enough for a college degree in model train sets. He deserved a BFA in _I Think I Can, I Think I Can!_ He smiled, thinking about a diploma in elaborate script, phrased like that.

“It has been a long time that you’ve carried that weight, Daniel.” Marius continued, a sweeping glance over the train set and then turning the elephant in his hands, inspecting the intricate details of the wrinkles, the trunk curved inward elegantly. Tiny useless tail. Tusks out like double lances at the ready. “Don’t you want to let it go?”

“Yeah, I do.” 

Daniel was tired, in fact, and silently invited Marius in on his thoughts. All his old means of letting off steam turned out to be mortal indulgences: smoking, of course, drinking gallons of whiskey right from the thick glass bottles and then throwing the empties out a balcony to hear them crash on a foreign street somewhere, sampling from one plate after another, tables laid out with exotic foods he’d never been able to afford before his own personal demon lavished it all on him. All the concerts, plays, musicals. The best seats in the house. Backstage access, even!

_(Running from his own personal demon via one redeye flight to another.)_

Yes, there was that. The one major indulgence had been pouring out his life story, and his deepest desires, to the slender figure, limbs gathered together, beside him on a voluptuous hotel couch, and then the sweet embrace of that demon that followed. Leaning in, eyes glistening, the promises in the secret silent voice only Daniel could hear, _I understand you, I can give you what you’ve sought…_ the high of being held tightly and being delicately sipped like a fine dessert liqueur, pressed into the cushions.

It had felt like love, it had felt like everything Daniel had ever wanted, to be wanted so much that he would have to run from it, a rabbit in the wild, and the amber-pelted fox would find him, again and again. They’d have a few nights of passion, and he’d break away again, because he would drown in it if he stayed too long. 

He had his head in his hands, running his hand through sandy blonde hair. 

**_Except blood, there’s always blood._ **

Yes, Daniel loved drinking blood as much as he thought he would. Daniel had sat in that old wooden hotel chair, polished from all the bodies it had held, his elbows planted on the table, chin in his hands, filled with the kind of awe that a child might have listening to someone tell him about where to find unicorns! It was in New Orleans, _can you believe it?_ He couldn’t believe he was getting this all on tape. Didn’t Louis understand anything? The victim’s dying was _secondary._ Barely a concern. The sensuality of the _killing_ was rooting Daniel to his seat and - if he were to be honest - giving him something of a boner.

But even blood led to its own issues because apparently, it had to come walking down the street in a human package, someone who had dressed that day as for any other, maybe in their favorite colorblock pullover, someone burdened with gifts for their family for the holiday. Someone who had to die, and while Louis had insisted during That Interview that this was the difficult part of their nature, Daniel didn’t grasp it until it was his actual concern.

And so killing was a riddle to be solved every night. 

From the very first night, when Armand had taken him by the shoulders and turned him 180 degrees towards his first victim, a little runaway, a child! He had her nervously smiling face in his hands and it hit him like a freight train: _this is what Louis had been straining to convey eons ago_ and she couldn’t be here, it wasn’t safe! Monsters, both of them. Armand stalked up behind him, snaking a hand around the back of his neck.

**_"God, get her out of here!" he cried._ **

**_"Take her," Armand whispered. "And do it now."_ **

“It didn’t get better from there,” Daniel said, and cast Marius a baleful look. “I mean, I had to do it, you know. I did kill that girl. Armand had to take care of the body…” he trailed off. His jaw clenched, that muscle shivered visibly on the concave sluice of his cheek. 

After a moment, he continued, his fingers digging deep in his hair. He huffed out a weak laugh. “I mean, it was beyond me that night, I understood, and I loved it, but it was messy, oh god, so wrong…” He could see her on the floor, broken, he had knocked her out of the chair in his frenzy, his own fingertips at his face, the blood across his cheeks was more like how a child might struggle with a cherry popsicle on a brutally hot summer’s day. Armand stood over him, total disappointment in his eyes, and took care of the mess, totally ignoring Daniel’s pleas for him. What did Armand expect? It was cruel to think Daniel’d be so suave…

Had Armand already done the calculation and decided it had been a mistake already? 

Marius nodded, not to any specific statement, but in a general way: _I’m listening._ “The first time is always difficult,” he said. “Armand should have had more patience for you.” 

“He was a goddamn _coven master!”_ Daniel said, the job title coming out in a shrill voice, tears threatening again. “He’d seen hundreds of vampires made, he should’ve known we don’t all come out like- like…” his eyes danced around his Scrabble tile tray. “I’dunno, Hannibal Lecter!” 

“Perhaps you felt responsible for his disappointment in some regard,” Marius ventured cautiously, head tilting slightly. “Perhaps you felt you led him to believe you would make that transition easily, that there would be no real interruption in your relationship.” 

“Well, yeah!” Daniel spread his hands. “I’d heard the whole story of it from Louis, I’d heard some from Armand, they both said, _in billboard-size letters:_ ‘Buyer Beware,’ enough times that I _got_ the goddamn message.” He grimaced, rubbed at his eyes and slumped back again, a blank tile clasped between his forefinger and middle, where a cigarette might have been. “And I still wanted it, I- I didn’t think-”

Marius waited for him to finish, but he didn’t go on. “You never could have truly known what it was. We all wish for our lovers to consent to this gift to bring them to us, but there is little one can do to truly explain it such that a person can fully grasp what will change.”

Daniel laughed brokenly, even though there was nothing to laugh at. “You can say that again.”

“So, you might agree that you needn’t flagellate yourself for asking for something you believe you grasped at the time. Or despise him for his part in it,” Marius said gently, evenly spacing his trayed tiles without touching them. “Which, I think, you have been doing, and, in the very same breath, feeling unjustified for that hatred, because of your agency in that decision.” 

Marius watched him across the table, and then unboxed the other animals carefully. “The Buddha once said, ‘Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of harming another; you are the one who gets burned.’” 

The violet of Daniel’s eyes seemed to take in a fraction more of the twinkling train set lights, hope sparking there. He picked up the elephant and rolled it in his fingers, pressing a tusk to his thumb pad. “I’m tired of being burned.”

 _I’m tired of taking care of a burn victim,_ Marius silently conveyed, and cracked a smile, his eyebrow a touch mischievous. 

That earned him a fragile smile back. Good. 

“I have problems with your elephant, too, Daniel. Perhaps we can make an enclosure for him so that we can visit him from a place of safety.” 

“He’s 160th scale to the real deal, he should be more afraid of _us_ than we are of _him_ ,” Daniel snorted, and smiled, much more genuinely. His smile was more real than he had had in a long time, his dimples even appeared. It felt right to wear on his face, it felt like being himself again… there was a molecule of relief in it. Maybe Marius could be more than a warden. 

_We can help each other, Daniel._ Marius’ eyes shone in the light. _Someone needed to give you more patience, more of a chance. Perhaps I need patience and to be given a chance, too._

Daniel nodded, shaking, his lip trembled. Marius rose to his feet and opened his arms, and Daniel went into them, relished his first hug in four years.

  
  


**END**


End file.
